Page 86 of Not a Word

“I wish. Been here so much I should have my mail sent here.”

She laughed. “First for me. Costs a lot, but I qualified for some special program that would cover it, at least this once.”

“My parents keep throwing money at these people, thinking one time it’ll work.” He shrugged. “Maybe one of these times they’ll get lucky and I’ll come out as this big success story.” He laughed. “As if.”

More small talk. Where they were from, schools they’d attended. Finally, Alicia asked, “Maybe you don’t want to talk about it, but man, what you’ve been holding in all this time, that’s nuts. So who is it who wouldn’t love you anymore if you talked?”

Holden looked down, shook his head.

“I’m sorry,” Alicia said, reaching out and putting her hand on his knee. “I’ve got no business asking.” A pause, and then, “It’s just, sometimes it helps to talk about these things.”

“You didn’t tell your whole story either,” he said.

She took her hand off his knee. “You’re right. Point taken. Okay, so this is what happened.”

Alicia had always been imaginative. Back in high school, she’d taken a creative writing class. She’d loved to write short stories. Ideas just flew into her head. There was a time when she thought that was what she’d like to be: a writer. But after the death of her parents and her brother, and then her aunt, she’d lost any enthusiasm she might have had in that direction. Anything she might want to write about was too painful.

Didn’t mean she couldn’t spin a good tale when she had to. She was a good liar. After all, isn’t that what writers are?

“A bank robbery,” she said. “My aunt—Mary was her name—was shot and killed in a bank robbery.”

“God, that’s awful,” Holden said. “And you were living with her at the time?”

She nodded. “I was out on my own after that.”

Alicia was ready with more details. She could embellish if necessary. But Holden didn’t ask.

“Okay, over to you,” she said.

Holden ate his first cookie.

“I don’t know . . .”

Alicia didn’t push. Waited.

Holden took in some air, let out a very long breath. “Oh boy.”

“Take your time.”

“It was my mom.”

Didn’t see that coming, Alicia thought.

“Your mom? You saw your mom kill someone?”

Holden put his index finger to his lips and looked around in case anyone was listening. “Yeah,” he said.

“Why? What happened? Who did she kill?”

Holden was close to hyperventilating.

“It’s okay, it’s okay. Take it slow,” she said.

“I swear, I’ve never talked about this.”

“Maybe you need to. After all this time.”

He took a few more breaths to calm himself and said, “This woman.”